It was super nice to wake up eat a little breakfast, Toast, scrambled eggs and orange juice, and then head to a race with the family. We arrived there 20 minutes early and picked up the race number. I quickly put it on and then wrapped Sage up securely in the BOB running stroller. One snow suit and four blankets later Sage was warm and barely visible. She wined a little as we were waiting on the start line. I rocked the stroller back and forth to help her calm down. Meagan, Sage’s mom has helped Sage become accustomed to the stroller. Thank goodness for my wife.
Then the race started. For those of you, who like me, have never started a race pushing a stroller, it is a little harder to get the stroller up to speed. Immediately the lead pack was ahead. No worry I kept telling myself most of the people that were ahead would slow down to their 5k race pace within the next couple minutes. I was right about that, I just didn’t know how fast some of the runners could go. Scott Dickey, one of the managers at Salt Lake Running Company had a commanding lead up front, so I had to make a move to try to catch him. I put in a surge after the first 400m or so. As I moved past the chase group there were more than a few comments coming from those fast guys. All were surprised to see my 4-month old daughter going for the leader. Scott, who is in great shape, has not raced a 5k all out in quite a while. He normally wouldn’t slow at all during the entire race, but a painful side ache slowed his pace around the second mile. This was just the opportunity Sage and I needed. We soon were running together. Scott told me he had a horrible side ache, and we were a minute or two up on the field, so we both decided to jog it in. It was a perfect Thanksgiving day race. Scott is a great middle distance runner could have easily pulled away from me at the end but we jogged it in together. He let Sage win because it was her first race. Nice Guy huh.
As we approached the finish line I was surprised that it was on a 90 degree turn. But Sage, Scott and I went across. The race director came up an asked if the last cone at the round about had been knocked over. We responded, “What cone”? As we were coming to the round about we had been chatting, and had chosen to go around the left side of the round about. On the right side there was a cone with an arrow showing us that we needed to turn. We cut off 30-45 seconds of the course. Oh Well. Luckily we were far enough ahead that the race director still gave us the first and second place prizes. I knew that a sub 16 minute 5k with Sage was pretty fast for me, especially with talking with Scott for the last Mile. Fun races like this one remind me what running is all about, having fun and improving health. I am glad that I am healthy enough to enjoy this activity with my friends and family. Sage seemed to find the race to be fun. So fun that She slept through the entire thing. That was a good thing, I had prepared myself to stop running if she has unhappy during the run. She comes first whenever we are running together with her in the stroller.
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Mutants!!
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